Margaret's Ark (41 page)

Carl moved onto the upper portion of the ramp but Margaret held up a hand to stay him. She made a similar gesture to the security guard, past whom the woman had slipped. The girl was familiar, a few years older than Carl. She held a baby in the crook of her left arm. The baby smiled and grabbed at his mother's shirt.

“You work at the lumber store,” Margaret said, trying not to look at her watch but knowing that it was only a matter of minutes by the way Carl was bouncing on the balls of his feet.

The girl nodded, gave Carl a quick sidelong glance then raised the baby between them. “I'm sorry. I know... I know you asked me long ago to join you. I didn’t, but I believed you. I listened to the radio, even saw you on TV. I never stopped believing. I swear!”

Margaret raised her hands, not wanting to touch the child. “It's too late -” she began.

The woman began to cry, heavy, tear-streaked sobs. When she spoke, however, the words were clear and came quickly. “I know. Really, I know. I'm not asking for me. I'll stay down here with the others. It's too late for me. But not Connor. Please! He's a good boy, and never cries, really. He won’t take up any room and I can’t let him die like this,
please
!”

Margaret moved to gently coax the baby back towards his mother. Holly used the opportunity to push him into her arms. She let go. Margaret was forced to take him. Connor cooed joyfully at this new game.

“Mrs. Carboneau….” Carl's agitation was obvious. “Please.”

Margaret waited a moment, feeling the wriggling child in her arms, not wanting to hold him any closer. The boy reeked of urine and feces, his face streaked with dried food. Margaret hardened herself for what she needed to say. The girl had been given a chance long ago, and she’d blown it.

That was when Margaret noticed the marks on the girl's wrists. She'd thought them tattoos or bracelets. No. They were rope burns. Red, swollen rings.

“How did -” she began but stopped. Seeing where Margaret was staring, the girl folded her arms across her chest.

Carl took a step down the ramp. “Mrs. Carboneau, you said yourself not to trust our watches. Come on!”

Margaret held Connor close now, and looked at the baby’s mother. She believed. This one believed, more so than the woman across the grass who'd managed to pin down her other two sons and give them their sandwiches.

But it was too late.

How strong is your faith, Margaret Carboneau?

The thought chilled her, for they weren't the words of the angel David nor anyone else. They were her own. Try as she might to suppress the next thought, it came.
How far could such a faith carry you?

No! She’d gone this far. Damn it, she’d given up everything. What more could she do? In that moment, in the minutes before the world would fall, it no longer felt as if she'd done enough.

How far would you go?

No, please
.

In those few remaining moments which seemed to stretch to eternity in her mind, Margaret had already decided.

Without looking away from the pleading face of the girl, she said loudly, “Carl. Hurry down here and take this baby with you. Then drop the ramp.”

No response. Margaret turned to face him. His expression would have been comical if she wasn't so frightened. Carl slowly shook his head.

“Carl, you said it yourself. We have no time. Please don’t question me now!”

“What the fu...” he began. His shoulders sagged. “Why?”

Connor wriggled playfully in Margaret’s arms.
Forget it
, she thought.
Just hand him back to his mother and run onto the ship before this goes too far.
Instead she said, “Carl, you haven't questioned one thing I've asked, or God has demanded, since this started. And now there isn’t any more time. Do this. Hurry!”

Carl didn’t move. Some of what had been said must have been heard through the hull, for there came muffled shouts of protest from inside the ark. One of the voices, Margaret was certain, belonged to Katie. Her older daughter screamed for someone to let her out of the harness. Her pleas were drowned out by louder, adult voices. Al’s voice boomed over them all, telling one person to “shut the fuck up and stay put!” She hoped he wasn't speaking to Katie that way.

Carl looked at his watch, gave Margaret one last glare of contempt. He whispered, “Please....” Margaret simply raised the squirming child before her like an offering. Carl let out a breath. Tears were running down both cheeks, but he bounded down the ramp. Margaret gripped Connor a little too tightly, afraid Carl was going to rip the boy from her hands and toss him aside. He took him from her gently. Through his tears, she saw so much rage and hurt in his eyes.

He ran back up the ramp. Holly cried out and took a step forward. Margaret reached for her, but the girl stopped under her own power before Margaret's hand closed around her elbow. She slowly stepped backwards. The two woman stood beside each other, watching Carl and Connor reach the top of the ramp.

The crowd around the ark, kept at bay all this time, murmured among themselves. Just a few voices, but it was obvious to Margaret that people had been paying close attention to the events. She thought of the nights seeing figures in the darkened cars, unseen faces watching and waiting. They were here now. She tried to pretend they weren't. She was alone, with the young woman, watching Carl reach the top and turn to face them.

Katie's voice inside the ship called, “Mom!” Margaret tried not to hear, listened only to the light breeze playing around her. She whispered, “I'm sorry, Katie. I'm really sorry. Take care of my babies, Carl.” Only the young woman heard. Margaret didn't know what to do next, so she looked at her watch.

It was eight-fourteen.

She led Holly two steps from the ark and knelt on the grass. Holly did likewise, still mute with the suddenness of what had happened, moving automatically.

Margaret cleared her throat, then yelled without looking up, “Carl, drop the ramp. We're out of time!”

Carl remained where he was, Connor in the crook of one arm. The baby was crying loudly now, sensing the others' distress.

“Hey, Lady!” A heavy man emerged from the crowd, a cigarette wedged between two pointing fingers. “What's going on? I'm on the list! Who was that little shit you let up there? I'm on the list!”

“Carl! For the baby's sake. Move it!”

Carl just stood there, staring down at her, mouthing “Why?” over and over.

The man stubbed out his cigarette and walked towards the ramp. “Like hell I’m letting anyone cut me in line!”

He never made it.

*     *     *

Suresh dipped his toes in the water. The midday sun exploded in short bursts from the ripples. He heard someone shout a two-minute warning. The couple that had been standing on the dock behind him walked quickly towards the voice. Suresh was left alone. Though the sun had burned down on him all morning, he shivered.

Bernard Meyers sauntered along the dock and stopped beside him. He looked at the sky and took another sip from the glass. All he got was a small sliver of ice.

“You don't seem to be enjoying my party, Mr. Ramprakash.”

Suresh did not respond. Meyers turned back to face the cottage. From this vantage, he watched the party-goers milling about uncertainly, laughing, looking at the sky. All but Neha, who pretended to be in conversation with Derek and Karen Jahns, but all the while was looking past them with a burning stare towards the dock.

He sighed and said, “What are you doing?”

Suresh made more ripples with his toes and said, “Praying... trying to, I guess.”

Meyers raised an eyebrow, though the effect was lost on the man as he continued staring at the lake splashing over his feet. He said, “You believe it's going to happen then?”

Suresh turned sideways on the dock and looked up at the doctor. “So do you.”

Meyers laughed suddenly, caught himself and tightened his lips. He looked around at the landscape and said, “So many people in the world. Thousands. They believe so strongly, threw everything away and built their arks. I've always wondered...” He trailed off, raised the glass to his lips but lowered it when he remembered it was empty.

Something caught Suresh's eye. He looked away from Meyers and stared at his wife. Neha glared back. Suresh looked past her. A colorfully adorned man, dark-skinned, perfect in his features, stood in the middle of the yard. Suresh’s throat went dry.

Meyers continued, “What I mean is, how many others actually had the dreams, the
visions
if you will,” he raised and lowered the empty glass unconsciously as he spoke, “but never did anything about it? Maybe they never believed in them.”

The figure's arms and legs were bent in a poetic gesture of running. One leg back and bent at the knee. The left arm behind his back in a similar, awkward gesture. The right arm angled before him. This dark man's right hand was open, palm-out. This was the pose of the god Hanuman, Suresh understood, sent by Rama when Ram's brother was struck down in battle. Hanuman, sent to find a special healing plant. Reaching the sacred mountain, he could not decide which plants to take, so he carried the entire mountain in the palm of his hand. Suresh peered closer, and saw what floated above Hanuman's open palm was
not
a mountain.

“...the idea is so ludicrous. And to throw everything away for a dream. Just a dream.”

Neha must have realized Suresh was looking past her. She turned, and when she saw nothing her expression doubled in its ferocity.

Floating above Hanuman's palm was a tiny rendition of the Earth. The longer he stared, the closer Suresh seemed to move towards the vision. Clearly he saw the blue and white globe, turning quickly above the palm. Then the god's fingers began to close, slowly, curling upward like brown teeth. They closed in, drawing tighter, and soon blocked Suresh's view of the tiny world which Haunman held within his grasp.

“It's time,” Suresh whispered.

Meyers stopped talking. He looked skyward. Nothing but a deep blue all around. And around. And around.

Meyers fell onto the dock, then rolled into the lake. He thrashed at the surface, letting go of his glass. He tried to get a footing on the muddy lakebed, but for the moment could not decide which way was down. The beach and dock seemed to heave and spin over him. He wondered how much he had drunk, before the water wrapped itself around him in a swirling undertow and pulled him away from shore. The sky tumbled below him. With a panicked thrash, he broke through the surface, only to see trees, then a road roll above him.

Suresh remained on the dock, face down and fingers splayed wide. His legs dangled over the edge, in the water, but the rest of his body pressed hard against the top of the dock. He tried to breathe. The world pulled at him from every conceivable direction but something pressed him down, holding him in place. The water raced away and his legs shot out behind him, desperate to follow. Suresh’s upper body remained pressed against the boards, gulping air into his compressed lungs as the unseen force of Hanuman's fingers pressed him harder and harder in place. He did not notice Bernard Meyers racing away within the retreating water.

*     *     *

No sound traveled into space. Earth, in its tremendous majesty, hung in the dark, infinite silence.  Its perpetual rotation had for so long been constant, unnoticed against the backdrop of the universe. Also unnoticed was the sudden interruption in this rotation.

Like a child's toy on a string, the blue and white planet stopped spinning. It remained motionless for a fraction of a moment. As Suresh struggled for breath against the dock and Bernard Myers released his empty glass into the lake, the massive planet began its rotation once again, in the opposite direction.

Tectonic plates, some the size of continents floating within their molten beds, should have crashed together, torn free of the land with a spray of magma and rock. They did not. Everything above and below the exposed land surface of the planet held fast under some monstrous, gravitational grip.

Oceans and lakes and rivers, traveling along the planet's surface with a millennia of momentum, moving a thousand miles per hour, always in the same direction, had no such restraints. At eight-fifteen Pacific time, the planet stopped and just as quickly changed direction. The water continued forward as it had always done, caught unaware. The proverbial rug that was Earth had been pulled out from under it.

*     *     *

The pressure holding everyone to the bricks along the park's walkway subsided, followed by the sound of hundreds of people heaving gasps of air into their lungs. Jack grabbed the iron chain-railing. An inner joy verging on ecstasy spun in his mind, more than the vertigo that had just seized them all.
God is truth
, he thought.
His word is truth and He has delivered unto us His promise
.

He wiped his eyes so he could watch God's destruction clearly. Circling the water, the neighboring hotel and Commercial Wharf were
not
a crumbling pile of metal and stone. Jack rubbed his eyes again. Something
was
happening. The screams of those behind him were overpowered by the roaring of the churning sea. Waves smashed into the slimy sea wall, then each other, sending towers of salty spray into the air. Jack raised his arms with unrestrained glee.

“Behold!” He shouted, “The Power of -”

He stopped. Like a leashed dog watching his master's car drive away, Jack stared helplessly as the waters of Boston Harbor smashed and roared away from him in a flood played in reverse. Out in open water an MBTA harbor ferry was swept away with its screaming passengers. It looked to Jack as if a plug had been pulled from a massive drain far out to sea.  He fell against the heavy chain-railing, his mind confused by the sight. Miles away the Atlantic Ocean surged with a momentum built over millennia. It rolled past the shores, then completely over the outer islands. Then the water was gone.

Al ong the milky horizon, the ocean moved eastward like a fading gray wall.